


Acer saccharum

by windfallswest



Series: Woods and Waters Wild [1]
Category: Andromeda, MASH (TV), Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, The Matrix (1999 2003 2003), Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fusion, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 17:24:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windfallswest/pseuds/windfallswest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another universe, Ran and Botan find each other.</p><p>Inde: early fall 3503</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acer saccharum

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to htebazytook for betaing.

A paper airplane sailed across the quad, lodging itself in a tree. A family of squirrels came streaming out the branches and down the trunk in an explosion of outraged chittering. Ran Fujimiya looked up uncertainly. The crisp, white paper of the airplane fluttered weakly in the breeze. Ran dropped his backpack and reached up. He bit his lip and stretched...ah! There. Ran caught one wing between his ring and middle fingers and tugged it free of the tree's grip. A few brightly green leaves tumbled out with it.

Somewhere behind Gilbert's, a bell began to toll.

"Ass-fucked horses of Whitefall," Ran swore, grabbing his backpack. He dashed over the grass, batting at the leaf he was sure had got itself stuck in his hair.

Ran burst through the doors of Jenkins Hall and sprinted down the hall.

"Nice entrance," Han said.

Ran set down his bag and sank into his seat. As an afterthought he glared at Han, who was smirking at the world in general as though it should be applauding. Ran brushed his bright red bangs out of his face, which had nearly smashed into the automatic door on his way in.

One of the departing upperclassmen stopped and plucked a stubborn leaf out of Ran's hair.

"Sugar maple. Acer saccharum. Tapping it to make syrup from its sap is a custom that originated on Earth-that-was. " He dropped the leaf over Ran's lap and continued out the door at the front of the room, totally unconcerned by the more or lass lethally menacing attitude shrouding Ran like the skins of an onion. This day was fixing up to be a real shiner, as in black and blue, and Ran had no reservations about sharing the experience.

Ran plucked the leaf out of the air, twirled it a few times by the stem, and growled.

Professor Anderson swept into the room. Ran heard at least three of his classmates melt in the space of time it took for Anderson to shuck his sunglasses and open his briefcase. Ran ground his teeth.

  


***

  
It was with a profound relief that Ran stepped through the door into his dorm room and let fall his burdens1.

Ran sniffed. "What is that?"

"Ta mah duh! You almost gave me a heart attack there, Ran."

Ran looked around. The lights were lowered, McIntyre's desk was cleared of its usual detritus 2 and draped with a piece of wine-red cloth. There were place-settings and two very tacky glasses. The wax-encrusted candle holder looked like it had been excavated from some lost storage room in the drama department, making the general appearance of the bottle next to it more of a sinister thing than a romantic. Having known John McIntyre for all of three weeks, Ran had no innocent illusions that there was sparkling grape juice in it.

" _McIntyre_ ," Ran groaned.

McIntyre stopped his bustling and ran a hand through his curly hair.

"Brussel sprouts in brandy." Ran wrinkled his nose, incredulous. "Is that _cologne?_ "

"Look, Ran, I'm not even gonna argue with you. Call me whatever you gorram well please, as long as I can call you outta here."

At this point, Ran was having rather fond thoughts concerning the wall, his head, and the realignment of reality. Some of it must have shown on his face, because McIntyre suddenly looked less like a shameless cad and more like a wounded puppy.

"C'mon, man. My Valentine is coming over in fifteen minutes! Show some compassion!"

Ran was nonplussed. "Your _what?_ "

"Valentine! The glorious, beautiful Rebecca Valentine. Just gimme tonight and I promise, you can put on an entire symphony tomorrow without me saying a peep."

McIntyre's voice had the edge of desperation; Ran's eyes narrowed.

"Deal."

Ran ignored McIntyre's rhapsodising and stuffed a few things into a bag.

"Shiny," he interrupted in a decidedly flat tone. "Just have whatever mess you make cleaned up by tomorrow morning."

  


***

  
"Hey Ran. Wasn't expecting you."

Ran quirked an eyebrow, a sour expression on his face. "I come to impose on your hospitality. If I hadn't made myself scarce, McIntyre probably would have put a knife in my back and stuffed me under his bunk beside his homework."

"Neither to be seen again. Trapper's gone and caught another one?" B.J. smiled.

"'Trapper' is, as we speak, assignating with one Beka Valentine. Apparently." Ran sank into a chair and spun around.

"Oh-ho- _ho, Valentine?_ " B.J. shook his head. "Oh, to be a fly on that wall. You should have stayed to see your friend get his balls handed to him." He was laughing now, practically doubled over his biochem.

Ran scowled. "He's not my friend, he's a rutting tomcat."

"Literally."

"Seriously, how does your roommate never have the urge to seize hold of your neck and throttle you? If it's not one of his dates, it's staying up to three studying."

"Simple. We're both pre-med. Although the year is yet young. Anyway," B.J. said, poking his text with a light pen to wake it up, "mi suelo es su suelo."

"Thanks."

Ran stopped himself against B.J.'s roommate's desk. "I'm going for dinner."

"Have fun," B.J. told him without looking up.

Ran took his time on the way to the dining hall. The Ockeghem University campus was the most open space he had seen in his life. When he was younger, Ran would sneak out onto the penthouse roof. It was quiet, alien. There were nothing but the terraced shapes of the tops of sky-scrapers. The ships coming and going from the spaceport were distant specks, and only a scattering of emergency vehicles flew at this level. But there was no walking from roof to roof any more than there was star-to-star.

No trees either. In Ran's mind, green was glass, thread, velvet. Just another colour, like that guy over there's shirt. He came here, and suddenly it was his field of vision.

Ran blinked, looking more closely at the figure in green. Drat it. The smart-ass from this morning.

Forcefully, Ran grabbed his tray and walked towards the tables.

"Stalking anywhere in particular?"

Ran glowered. "What do you want?"

"Mind if I join you?"

"Actually—" Ran began.

"Great." Leaf Man sat down across from him and smiled.

Momentarily taken aback, Ran hastily shored up his sagging Glare of Eternal Hatred. Then he ate his dinner. He was entirely impervious. Why should it matter where the Leaf Man sat? Gods and porpoises. Didn't he ever stop talking?

"Who the hell are you anyway?" Ran interrupted a spewing soliloquy on dinner or architecture 3 or something.

"Botan," replied the Leaf Man.

"What kind of a name is Botan?"

"A fake one. What kind of a name do you have?"

"..." Ran cocked an eyebrow. "A real one."

"What is it?"

"Why do you care?"

Botan raised his hands. "Fair's fair."

"You didn't actually tell me your name," Ran felt compelled to point out.

"Piffle."

"I'll call you that, you know," Ran threatened.

"Bitch."

"And I thought I was monosyllabic."

They stared at each other.

"I'll just be going, shall I?" Ran started to stand.

"No, wait!"

"Hnh?"

"I, no. Never mind."

"All right, then." Ran walked away.

"Nnk," Ran told the darkening sky outside. He didn't really feel like hitting someone, more like playing something high and fast and stabbing, like the Allegro to Beethoven's violin concerto in D major. He could still fit in a few hours tonight before the practise rooms closed. Ran didn't think B.J. slept anyway.

B.J. had managed to sort of drip over the edge of his chair and was half-lying on his back with a foot propped on the seat when Ran returned. That glaze over his eyes could either be a trance-like state or impending coma. Ran reached carefully over him and retrieved the worn old satchel he used to carry his music. Something fell out of it and crossed B.J.'s line of sight. He blinked a few times, then picked it off his face.

"What's this?" B.J. asked, clearly flummoxed.

"Acer saccharum," said Ran resignedly. He snagged his violin and waved a vague salute with it as he left.

  


***

  
It had been about a week and Botan or whoever he was hadn't vanished himself. He had some journalism class with Turner before Ran's pointless writing credit. There had been times when Ran had caught a glimpse of him crossing the quad or in the music building, which didn't really mean anything because there were those two random social-sciences professors on the third floor. Probably, he wasn't seeing him any more than he had before, it was just that he knew him now. Sort of. Passingly.

Ran was coming back from his late Theory class, and something smelled fishy. It smelled like a fish sauced to the gills, as a matter of fact, and the alarming cornucopia of inebriatory sensory input seemed to be wafting from his own floor. And for good reason: much of it was coming from his room.

Ran stopped for long enough to bang his head on the door a few times and then made for his Haven Of, If He Thought Of It, Unnatural Studiousness. Not always, alas, from the shouts of _Hawkeye! Another round!_ floating melodiously out a fifth-storey window. With sinking heart, Ran elbowed his way through the maelstrom. Stumbling through the crowd, Ran was in time to see B.J. and his roommate in the middle of a very enthusiastic kiss.

"Hawkeye," B.J. said as seriously as a drunk man can, "you taste like really, _truly_ awful moonshine."

"Oh, is that what that was? I thought it was rotten liver and fish guts."

"Ran!" B.J. lurched to his feet. "You look silly standing there." He leaned in close, one long arm wrapped around Ran's shoulder's. "I don't think you're drunk yet," he intimated.

"Definitely not!"

" _Ran,_ " B.J. explained impatiently, "if you don't blow off steam, then kabloopf! out through your precious fingers. Have to look out for the hands, you know. I'm a sturgeon. You're a, a, vio—viowhatsacallit."

Ran slumped in defeat. B.J. giggled and collapsed after the fashion of a Jacob's ladder and immediately commenced tickling the almost equally lanky Hawkeye. Prodded by the ensuing riff of girl-like shrieks, Ran took possession of a drink.

B.J. was right: it was awful.

  


***

  
Hm. Ran hiccoughed, interrupting his chain of thought mid-wave. He spent the between ten and sixty minutes debating whether he should be mad at himself for that or not and came to the conclusion that it would all give him a headache and he'd DIE if he didn't have another drink.

Hic.

Ran felt the cool wind on his face and looked up, except his eyes were closed. He made a satisfied _mmm_ ing noise and swayed , like trees in the music. Nono, like...winds? Not percussion; percussion didn't _sway_.

"Whoopsie!"

Ran whirled on the man who had just run into him. Tried to. Sort of went spinning a bit and flailed his arm into his, whose? Botan's, face.

"Ack!" Ran squeaked, windmilling his arms. "You! Stay! No, thasswrong, go! Stay away!"

Botan wobbled, squinting fiercely at Ran's left eyebrow.

"Fucker. Big, prissy, na—pransch—fucker." Botan swung at him.

"Hey!" Ran dodged 4 into him. Thunk. Thunk-thunk-thunk. There were definite fists involved now. Wrestling. Slippery.

Slippery. Ran blinked upward and Botan hit him in the jaw. Rain. Well. Where had _that_ come from, now? Botan had pinned him while he was distracted and now he lacked the coordination to do much more than wiggle under him. At some point, his grip on Botan's shoulders had ceased to push Botan away but instead was pulling him down. Ran wrapped a leg around Botan's. Consciousness was a gasp in his throat and as soon forgotten.

The course of their fight had taken them near a side door to Ran's dorm building, which he _had_ been heading for, earlier. It was late now; almost all the lights were out.

One of them managed a student ID, and somehow they must have made it to their feet. Ran was horny and Botan felt good up against him—long, broad, strong. Breath in his ear and some kind of mad half-smile that lit fires just about everywhere but his brain.

Thank god, thank god, nobody was in Ran's room. Ran blessed every gorram ancestor he had for his slutty, drunken roommate between kisses. Clothing was evaporating rapidly. Skin, skin, and wet-cold hair. Botan's nipples were dark and peaked. Ran backed him against a wall and tasted them. He was making sounds and Botan's hands were clenched around his biceps, kneading.

One pair of underwear was in the way, someone's, and they had a hellish time getting it gone. They ended naked, naked on Ran's bed, kissing with a sloppy, fevered grace. Botan was grinding down on him. Ran broke away from dappling kisses along the strong lines of his face long enough to arch up into the movement.

"Oh gods...feel so good," slurred Botan. He licked a stripe from Ran's shoulder to his ear. "Don'stop."

Ran's hand was tangled in Botan's shaggy black hair, plastered with it to his skull. Botan's grey and fierce eyes reflected back the purple of Ran's own. He shattered the gaze to bite Ran's neck, nibbling under Ran's jaw until he lost all semblance of rhythm, thrusting wildly against Botan's stomach.

"Right there...ah! Botan!" Ran's voice drowned itself in a tide of unformed sounds.

"'ve got you," panted Botan.

Botan's cock was stiff and heated on his thigh, Botan's skin like nothing he'd ever felt. Ran came shouting and wrapped Botan in his clinging limbs.

Boatn gasped. He smeared a kiss over Ran's mouth, tongue everywhere and teeth biting. He bucked and shuddered, spending himself in three long spurts.

They shifted as nearly sideways as they could on the small bed, with tangled arms and legs. Ran mumbled Botan's name against his collarbone and faded into sleep.

  


***

  
"Ow."

"Shit."

"Bugger-fucking monkey trees."

Botan tilted his head and kissed Ran. Ran opened his mouth and melted into it. There was a taste very like vermouth in his mouth, though well-mouldered.

"Mm."

Ran smiled sleepily back at Botan.

"Botan."

"Mm?" Botan prompted.

"Ran."

"Ran." Botan shifted closer. "My head feels like it's been pounded by a sledgehammer wrapped in a tea-cosy."

"S'my left hook," Ran mumbled, now attempting to hide under the covers.

"I think it was a different sort of punch." Botan groaned. "Oh, merciful emu-herders."

They soon discovered themselves stuck together, but necessity is the mother of fortitude. It was some kind of mother, at least. Ran and Botan were by no means the only ones suffering from a night's entertainment. Ran had never been more grateful for the weekend. Kneeling in a stall taking turns vomiting into the toilet with Botan was bad enough without being late to class.

"Stop leaning on me," Ran growled. He winced.

"You're the one leaning on me," Botan protested.

"Am not." Ran staggered to his feet, Botan along with him.

"What would you call this, then?"

Ran made a half-hearted attempt to shove Botan off.

"Obviously, you can't walk straight on your own."

"Oh, really now." Botan grinned in a blearily evil way and pushed him into a shower stall.

Ran almost tripped over the shower curtain. He snaked an arm out of the shower and hung his robe up. Gods, he was a mess.

He turned the water up to scalding and heaved a sigh of relief. He grabbed the soap, scrubbing off the odour of drink, sex, and unpleasant bodily functions. Bracing his arms against the grungy tile of the stall, Ran let the hard spray pound out the knots in his shoulders and back. _Fuck. Oh, that feels better._

Botan was waiting for him when he came out. Ran's breath caught. He hadn't actually looked at Botan yet, taken the time to see him and drink him in. He must have been at the end of a growth spurt or something because his shoulders were wide but otherwise he was as close to two-dimensional as a person could be. Ran himself was still shaped pretty much like a stick. Botan's hair was mussed, black like space. It stuck to his neck and face like it had been inked there. There were circles under his eyes, maybe a couple bruises on his face. His lips still cupped a slight, insufferable smile. They twitched while Ran watched.

Ran started walking, somewhat nervously. Botan fell in beside him.

Ran risked a sideways glance.

"You're wearing my robe."

Botan jumped. _Gotcha._ Ran could feel his eyes on him.

"Whose robe are you wearing, then?"

"McIntyre's. My roommate's."

"You have a purple paisley robe?" Botan asked after a moment.

"Um." Ran was being distracted by Botan's hands. He kept getting flashes of them from the night before: a touch on his back, gentle brush across his face. "It was a gift from my sister."

Botan glanced down. "Shows rather a lot of leg. How old is your sister?"

Ran thwapped him on the head. "Sixteen."

"Ow! Careful, it's about to fall off all on its own." Botan rubbed his head protectively.

"I have drugs for that somewhere." Ran tilted into his door ad tapped the code into the lock. The door swung inwards with a whoosh. Stupid old-fashioned things. Fire precautions or something. Ran would have fallen had not Botan caught him round the waist.

Ran found himself pressed up against Botan's chest, blinking into his eyes.

"Uh. Thanks." Ran swallowed. His head was pounding and spinning, and hell if he could tell how much was hangover and how much was Botan.

The door _snick_ ed closed when Botan nudged it. Ran finally breathed again in the welcome darkness and slipped his arms around Botan. He was breathing open-mouthed, almost, _almost_ touching.

Botan settled his hands on Ran's shoulders and rested his forehead against Ran's own.

"Ran."

A pleased little thrill skipped up Ran's spine.

"Botan." Ran wondered if his voice sounded as hungry s Botan's did.

"Headache."

"...right."

***

  
  
[1] With the exception of his violin case, which Ran placed upon his desk with utmost care.   
  
  
  
[2] Which had been stuffed in a crate beneath McIntyre's bed.   
  
  
  
[3] The one of which resembled a component of the other.   
  
  
  
[4] And by dodged we mean tackled.  


  



End file.
